Or have you seen the price of Windos "converge" in any meaningful way? Have you missed the article a few stories down about price fixing in the LCD market? The many other examples of price manipulations?
Have you read about netbooks? Originally Microsoft did not even want to sell Windows XP anymore because they wanted to boost Windows Vista sales numbers. Asus releasing the Linux Eee PC netbook was enough for forcing Microsoft to not only continue selling Windows XP, but lowering the price enough to be competitive with the Linux desktops. Market distortions are older than dirt. The "father" of capitalism, Adam Smith, wrote The Wealth of Nations as a protest against mercantilism economics. He specifically mentions cartels as things to be avoided. Also notice that unlike the Windows Vista release, the number of Microsoft promotional offers, rebates, etc, increased a lot for the Windows Vista 7 release meaning they are in fact lowering the product ASP even if they do not specifically say so. Even "official" retail prices dropped.
The thing about this patent is that "price information" itself is manipulated. Your price information is meaningless to me, because I can not get it.
The more users there are, the higher the chance price information will leak out. Microsoft does not exactly run a business amenable to these tactics. You are also assuming resale of product is impossible. Most businesses I know running highly differentiated pricing schemes do services, not products.
You are ignoring gray markets and black markets. You can try to bend the natural laws of economics as much as you want. Even if you control the entire state apparatus, as in the Soviet Union, the irresistible forces of the market eventually provide your undoing.
Why do you think Free Software began in the first place?
Bill Gates also used to think his MSN proprietary network paywall would have more success than any silly Internet thingie. What he fails to realize is than in an Internet era, where price information travels rapidly, prices converge towards fixed prices. Not this drivel.
Stallman is right. A GNOME site should not be promoting closed source software which is not part of the project. One reason I do not use Freshmeat any more is because it is ridden with lists of closed source software. I'm better off going to SourceForge in the first place. Many free software projects have links to their project in SourceForge even if they do not actually host anything at SourceForge. The more GNOME sites promote closed source software, the more out of tune with users they become.
Since when is Mono innovative? Are we talking Microsoft's definition of innovative, or the dictionary definition of innovative?
France also has ASMP (Air-Sol Moyenne Portée) nuclear air-to-ground missiles which they can load into their Mirage 2000N, and Rafale fighters. But yeah, the submarines are more survivable. The fighter platforms are mostly useful to initiate a first strike.
I suppose that could be it. I used to use Vista 32-bit and now use Windows 7 64-bit. I mainly use Windows because of the software compatibility so I did not want to plunge into 64-bits right away. However if you read this thread it seems the problem is more complex than that. I have heard people claim in the past it is actually a hardware bug which happens when the GPU overheats, and that some people had success with underclocking their GPU below factory speed. Never bothered trying that.
I had an especially bad time with games using the Source Engine like Left 4 Dead. It seems they used some nasty programming in there. I had to disable multi-threading, sound, and a number of other things to get it to crash less, rather than not crash, in Vista 32-bit. If I played Dawn of War II with shadows enabled (the default) I would also consistently get display driver restarts.
Bioware has been in the dumps for yonks. The people who made Fallout and Planescape Torment? Gone. The people who made Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights? Gone. The people who made Knights of the Old Republic? Gone. They had to ask Obsidian Entertainment to make Knights of the Old Republic II. It is surprising that they can get any piece of software out of the door at all considering the way they fired people.
Quickly? I still had that bug in a NVIDIA graphics board until I upgraded to Windows 7. I haven't seen the bug yet, but then again, I haven't played any 3D game in it yet either.
For example, should competing big companies be allowed to use their economies of scale to make and sell cheaper products based on open hardware designs developed by small start-ups without payment?
This is called a non-commercial license. Non-commercial licenses have had a notoriously poor market reception in the past for software (no kidding). Only successful project I remember which uses such a license is MAME. People usually hate it for that, since you cannot easily port work to/from MAME and other open-source projects easily. If you do not allow people to manufacture hardware in a commercial basis, it will be even worse, since most people do not have the resources to manufacture hardware. It is nearly as bad as having a closed design.
'Hacking' for unlawful purposes is a problem with any design.
Pegasus is one of the most expensive rockets in the market.
Scaled Composites has no inside rocket propulsion engine know-how, which makes me kind of doubt they will be able to crack the market. They tried making their own hybrid rocket engine and had a tank explosion which killed several of their staff. They had to ask SpaceDev to make the rocket engine. This is why SpaceShipTwo isn't flying already. The rocket engine development is taking longer than they expected since they couldn't do it in-house. They have great composite structure and aeronautics know-how. But many people in the industry say the hybrid rocket engine isn't safe and N2O is hard to handle. Time will tell I suppose.
I assembled my own PC to solve that. This way I can also select each component I want in a personalized fashion. Whichever Windows license they bundled in a pre-assembled PC, I usually throw it away anyway. Who cames for Windows Home?
Sure the TFX was a turd. But the F-4 Phantom was originally a carrier borne fighter-bomber plane which ended up being used by all the services, so it can be done. One of the reasons the F-111 wasn't used (besides the many design problems from all the new technology they piled on it) was because the Navy said it was too heavy for a carrier aircraft as you said. Then they accepted the F-14 Tomcat which has about the same weight. The Navy asked for side-by-side seating for F-111 but then accepted in-line seating in F-14... It is a pain to design a fighter for the Navy.
The rifle argument gets pretty stale when you realize the Nazis could just use their air force to bomb Switzerland to kingdom come had they so desired. Nazi close air support aircraft would make mincemeat of resistance by soft targets.
Palm webOS is also Linux kernel based. That is the proprietary environment based on a Linux kernel, not Android. Android components by Google are distributed under the BSD license, that is the reason there is so much variation between vendors. That was the price to pay to get HTC and the other hardware vendors to jump in the Android bandwagon.
Sugarcane cultivation requires a tropical or subtropical climate, with a minimum of 600 mm (24 in) of annual rainfall. Sugarcane is one of the most efficient photosynthesizers in the plant kingdom, able to convert up to 2% of incident solar energy into biomass.
A solar thermal power plant can easily convert 20% of incident solar energy into electricity. So you would need like 10x the land area to generate the same amount of energy using sugar cane. Solar thermal power plants can, and have been, built in deserts, so they do not displace other crops in land viable for agriculture.
Sugar cane is loads better than corn for ethanol and is net energy positive, but that does not mean it is a good idea to replace all transportation fuels with it.
Quoting wikipedia again:
In 2005, Brazil consumed 2 million barrels (320,000 m3) of oil per day, versus 280,000 barrels (45,000 m3) of ethanol...
Brazil is a major oil producer and now exports gasoline (19,000 m/day)
Not all cars in Brazil use ethanol, and Brazil is a net petroleum exporter. They have offshore oil wells. There is the "secret" of their self-sufficiency in transportation fuels.
Sure, if you want to make a drag racer, you do not need as many batteries as for a regular car. So it is little wonder a converted car can compete there.
The problem of storing hydrogen on the vehicle with enough density will probably be easier than that of battery energy density.
Hah, not really. Material improvements in containers have been less fruitful than increases in battery density. My guess is you will sooner see more widespread use of tar sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquids or gas-to-liquids than hydrogen. Battery technology is piggybacking on developments in consumer electronics, while hydrogen fuel tanks are used in the space launch industry and little place else. I know which one I would bet will get cheaper quicker... Not to mention if you use fuel cells, you most likely will need to use platinum to manufacture them.
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Stallman used to sell tapes with GNU software, as well as manuals. He even said this was the way he initially supported himself.
Or have you seen the price of Windos "converge" in any meaningful way? Have you missed the article a few stories down about price fixing in the LCD market? The many other examples of price manipulations?
Have you read about netbooks? Originally Microsoft did not even want to sell Windows XP anymore because they wanted to boost Windows Vista sales numbers. Asus releasing the Linux Eee PC netbook was enough for forcing Microsoft to not only continue selling Windows XP, but lowering the price enough to be competitive with the Linux desktops. Market distortions are older than dirt. The "father" of capitalism, Adam Smith, wrote The Wealth of Nations as a protest against mercantilism economics. He specifically mentions cartels as things to be avoided. Also notice that unlike the Windows Vista release, the number of Microsoft promotional offers, rebates, etc, increased a lot for the Windows Vista 7 release meaning they are in fact lowering the product ASP even if they do not specifically say so. Even "official" retail prices dropped.
The thing about this patent is that "price information" itself is manipulated. Your price information is meaningless to me, because I can not get it.
The more users there are, the higher the chance price information will leak out. Microsoft does not exactly run a business amenable to these tactics. You are also assuming resale of product is impossible. Most businesses I know running highly differentiated pricing schemes do services, not products.
I said "fixed prices" not free.
Why do you think Free Software began in the first place?
Reading is some more this seems awfully familiar to multi-level marketing. Enjoy your brand new MS Herbalife overlords.
Isn't this a business method patent?
Since when is Mono innovative? Are we talking Microsoft's definition of innovative, or the dictionary definition of innovative?
USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced in Arctic - 1959.
France also has ASMP (Air-Sol Moyenne Portée) nuclear air-to-ground missiles which they can load into their Mirage 2000N, and Rafale fighters. But yeah, the submarines are more survivable. The fighter platforms are mostly useful to initiate a first strike.
Not just Starship Troopers, but Dune as well. God Emperor of Man? Astropaths? Space Marine training grounds often look like Salusa Secundus.
Starcraft is one example. I would rather play Starcraft than C&C.
I had an especially bad time with games using the Source Engine like Left 4 Dead. It seems they used some nasty programming in there. I had to disable multi-threading, sound, and a number of other things to get it to crash less, rather than not crash, in Vista 32-bit. If I played Dawn of War II with shadows enabled (the default) I would also consistently get display driver restarts.
Bioware has been in the dumps for yonks. The people who made Fallout and Planescape Torment? Gone. The people who made Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights? Gone. The people who made Knights of the Old Republic? Gone. They had to ask Obsidian Entertainment to make Knights of the Old Republic II. It is surprising that they can get any piece of software out of the door at all considering the way they fired people.
Quickly? I still had that bug in a NVIDIA graphics board until I upgraded to Windows 7. I haven't seen the bug yet, but then again, I haven't played any 3D game in it yet either.
You force the use of certification. Then you force either the manufacturer or the seller to provide insurance. Done.
For example, should competing big companies be allowed to use their economies of scale to make and sell cheaper products based on open hardware designs developed by small start-ups without payment?
This is called a non-commercial license. Non-commercial licenses have had a notoriously poor market reception in the past for software (no kidding). Only successful project I remember which uses such a license is MAME. People usually hate it for that, since you cannot easily port work to/from MAME and other open-source projects easily. If you do not allow people to manufacture hardware in a commercial basis, it will be even worse, since most people do not have the resources to manufacture hardware. It is nearly as bad as having a closed design.
'Hacking' for unlawful purposes is a problem with any design.
Pegasus is one of the most expensive rockets in the market.
Scaled Composites has no inside rocket propulsion engine know-how, which makes me kind of doubt they will be able to crack the market. They tried making their own hybrid rocket engine and had a tank explosion which killed several of their staff. They had to ask SpaceDev to make the rocket engine. This is why SpaceShipTwo isn't flying already. The rocket engine development is taking longer than they expected since they couldn't do it in-house. They have great composite structure and aeronautics know-how. But many people in the industry say the hybrid rocket engine isn't safe and N2O is hard to handle. Time will tell I suppose.
I assembled my own PC to solve that. This way I can also select each component I want in a personalized fashion. Whichever Windows license they bundled in a pre-assembled PC, I usually throw it away anyway. Who cames for Windows Home?
Sure the TFX was a turd. But the F-4 Phantom was originally a carrier borne fighter-bomber plane which ended up being used by all the services, so it can be done. One of the reasons the F-111 wasn't used (besides the many design problems from all the new technology they piled on it) was because the Navy said it was too heavy for a carrier aircraft as you said. Then they accepted the F-14 Tomcat which has about the same weight. The Navy asked for side-by-side seating for F-111 but then accepted in-line seating in F-14... It is a pain to design a fighter for the Navy.
No consumer version means this will turn into another i860. I guess ATI will remain the only viable competitor to NVIDIA then.
The rifle argument gets pretty stale when you realize the Nazis could just use their air force to bomb Switzerland to kingdom come had they so desired. Nazi close air support aircraft would make mincemeat of resistance by soft targets.
Palm webOS is also Linux kernel based. That is the proprietary environment based on a Linux kernel, not Android. Android components by Google are distributed under the BSD license, that is the reason there is so much variation between vendors. That was the price to pay to get HTC and the other hardware vendors to jump in the Android bandwagon.
Quoting that wikipedia page:
Sugarcane cultivation requires a tropical or subtropical climate, with a minimum of 600 mm (24 in) of annual rainfall. Sugarcane is one of the most efficient photosynthesizers in the plant kingdom, able to convert up to 2% of incident solar energy into biomass.
A solar thermal power plant can easily convert 20% of incident solar energy into electricity. So you would need like 10x the land area to generate the same amount of energy using sugar cane. Solar thermal power plants can, and have been, built in deserts, so they do not displace other crops in land viable for agriculture.
Sugar cane is loads better than corn for ethanol and is net energy positive, but that does not mean it is a good idea to replace all transportation fuels with it.
Quoting wikipedia again:
In 2005, Brazil consumed 2 million barrels (320,000 m3) of oil per day, versus 280,000 barrels (45,000 m3) of ethanol ...
Brazil is a major oil producer and now exports gasoline (19,000 m/day)
Not all cars in Brazil use ethanol, and Brazil is a net petroleum exporter. They have offshore oil wells. There is the "secret" of their self-sufficiency in transportation fuels.
Sure, if you want to make a drag racer, you do not need as many batteries as for a regular car. So it is little wonder a converted car can compete there.
The problem of storing hydrogen on the vehicle with enough density will probably be easier than that of battery energy density.
Hah, not really. Material improvements in containers have been less fruitful than increases in battery density. My guess is you will sooner see more widespread use of tar sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquids or gas-to-liquids than hydrogen. Battery technology is piggybacking on developments in consumer electronics, while hydrogen fuel tanks are used in the space launch industry and little place else. I know which one I would bet will get cheaper quicker... Not to mention if you use fuel cells, you most likely will need to use platinum to manufacture them.